I have posted several questions on by bike choice and bad back, and appreciate the opinions on disk herniations, bikes with higher head tube etc.
I have a bike suggestion from my LBS: a carbon (as opposed to an alu) frame, but road bike geometry with a tallish (160 mm) head tube. The bike is a Kuota Ksano with a complete tri setup, not with road bars. They will position saddle forward etc. My other choices might be (from different dealer) a triathlon specific bike: Javelin Arcole (alu but also with higher HT) or Elite (also alu, also with taller head tube). OR a custom Yaqui or Elite. All of these choice will be in same ($3200- $3700) ballpark with similar components. I have bought 5 or 6 bikes from these guys over almost 10 yrs so I feel some loyalty to them, but not at the expense of my back and wallet!
Advantage of the road frame is that if I can't ride in aero position after a year or so (say I get another disk herniation) I can spend a few hundred $$, easily convert this to a road bike and ride more upright, even do triathlons of course. If I buy a tri specific bike I can't do that. I'm 51, hope to keep the triathlon career (?) going for another 10+ years.
I looked around the site here for some more info on road geometry/tri setup, based on that I think this will put a lot of weight up front and f#$% the handling and weight distribution.
Any opinions on whether a road bike with tri setup is a good idea? will it handle like a pig and tend to throw me in the ditch with the screwy weight distribution?
don't just do something..... sit there
I have a bike suggestion from my LBS: a carbon (as opposed to an alu) frame, but road bike geometry with a tallish (160 mm) head tube. The bike is a Kuota Ksano with a complete tri setup, not with road bars. They will position saddle forward etc. My other choices might be (from different dealer) a triathlon specific bike: Javelin Arcole (alu but also with higher HT) or Elite (also alu, also with taller head tube). OR a custom Yaqui or Elite. All of these choice will be in same ($3200- $3700) ballpark with similar components. I have bought 5 or 6 bikes from these guys over almost 10 yrs so I feel some loyalty to them, but not at the expense of my back and wallet!
Advantage of the road frame is that if I can't ride in aero position after a year or so (say I get another disk herniation) I can spend a few hundred $$, easily convert this to a road bike and ride more upright, even do triathlons of course. If I buy a tri specific bike I can't do that. I'm 51, hope to keep the triathlon career (?) going for another 10+ years.
I looked around the site here for some more info on road geometry/tri setup, based on that I think this will put a lot of weight up front and f#$% the handling and weight distribution.
Any opinions on whether a road bike with tri setup is a good idea? will it handle like a pig and tend to throw me in the ditch with the screwy weight distribution?
don't just do something..... sit there